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Saturday, July 30, 2011

Yes! I'm still plugging away at this! For new readers, I'm participating in the 25 Motif Challenge hosted by Sharon Briggs. The idea is to tat 25 motifs of your choice within the span of a year. No penalties if you don't but many rewards when you do. It's one way to focus, to improve your tatting skills and to just have fun. So many people think they don't tat much but when you record your tatting, as you do in the Challenge, you might be surprised to see how much you really accomplish.

For this challenge, I'm going through the D.M.C. Tatting publication which can be found in the Antique Pattern Library. If you do a search in the left sidebar for "25 Motif Challenge", you will find my prior posts in this and the previous challenge I participated in.

This is figure 12 of Plate 2, an edging made up of a ring with 9 picots spaced with 2 ds between. Then a chain comes around with small rings thrown off and is joined in the middle of the ring picots.

As usual, I'm tatting the first sample in size 20 DMC Special Cordonnet. This is actually my second sample. In the first one, I left out the chain 4 between the large rings and then I tried to tat across where the crochet header is and it looked all wrong. Boo! Hiss!

So I did it again, the right way. (and still made a mistake in joining to the first ring!) I used a size 50 DMC thread for the crocheted header. The instructions say to treble in the picots but falling back on what I know of old crochet terms, this is really supposed to be a double crochet. I wish now I'd only single crocheted as it does set the header a bit high. There was supposed to be a chain 5 after the double crochets and then treble crochet at the base of the large ring and again at the join of the previous ring. This was too long and really bowed up so I shortened it to 4 chain stitches between. I could have made the treble another loop longer too but considering my previous samples, I was happy with this one. I used a size 12 steel crochet hook and this made the stitches tighter. As in previous headers, the next row is double crochet, skip 1 stitch, double crochet all the way across.

Here's a numbered scan. You start with the large ring, (2-)9X, 2, close ring. Make the 5th picot smaller since it is a joining picot. Reverse work, chain 3-4, switch working shuttles so you are using the ball shuttle and tat a ring of 6 ds, close the ring and switch shuttles back so you can chain 3. Repeat for 2 more small rings, chain 4-3, join to the 5th picot of the large ring, chain 4, then reverse work and start all over.

I bought these pillowslips at Walmart a few months ago with the intention of tatting or crocheting edgings on them. I've started tatting figure 12 but I'm using Josephine Knots instead of regular rings. I sort of wish I stayed with the regular rings since they go faster but I also wanted to see if they looked any different. I will not put a header on this and I may only put it on the stitching line of the hem. I've only got about 10" done of the 40" needed for one pillowcase. This is Lizbeth thread, size 20. I have another ball of variegated that coordinates with this one and may tat a simple edging if I put this one on the hem line.

And yes, I still have the flower edging for the blouse sleeves to work on. I've had it in my binder to show and tell at various times so I'll take it out and start working on it again, along with the pillowslip trim and the secret project I haven't shown yet. I DO like to have lots of projects going on at the same time but I have to watch that I don't neglect some and then forget what I was doing!

13 comments:

I dearly love this edge, good job! One of the things I really enjoy about your blog, is seeing these vintage pieces you do, I really really enjoy seeing them revisited and come back to life and how you post them, what you have to say about them, the process, any troubles you had, if they were easy, the scanned counts, what you use them in, the crochet add on problems or ease, etc, all of it, I just love love love your segments on these. Thank you!

I have had a copy of this book since I was young (a heck of a long time ago) and have often browsed through it for the sheer joy of the pieces in it. You are slowly and beautifully bringing it to life. Thanks so much.

For most of the edgings you've shown so far, the crocheted header has been a necessary part of the design. I think this one actually looks better without the header, and has enough picots to be able to attach it to the fabric just fine. I'm really glad you showed it without, because this is an edging I could actually see myself doing.

Jane acquired another copy of this book and I requested it, not knowing at the time that it was the one you were working through, so it is good to see how you are progressing with the designs. I particularly like the combination of crochet and tatting, but generally I am enjoying all the work you are doing with this book, just need more time to try them out!Thank you.